I just realized another reason I love Hozier’s music. It’s not just that the lyrics are complex, or the music itself is beautiful - it’s that Hozier is a musical liar.
Take Cherry Wine. This is a song about an abusive relationship, told from the perspective of someone very much in love with their abuser. Throughout the song, the narrator describes their lover’s cruelty. Lyrics like “I walk my days on a wire” and “open hand or closed fist would be fine” make the darker aspects of their relationship all too evident. At points, the song suggests that they are defending this relationship to someone else who cares about them (“it looks ugly but it’s clean. Oh mama, don’t fuss over me”) and even the more beautiful and seemingly romantic lines later in the song (“oh but she loves like sleep to the freezing”) have dark undertones (what else is sleep to the freezing but death?) Still, I often come across the song being used in a wholesome, romantic context. A lot of factors contribute to this, but I would argue that this song mainly gets mistaken for a romantic song because of how soft and gentle the music is - it presents as a sweet love song in every way except the lyrics. Even those lyrics are told through the lens of someone defending their broken and abusive relationship, deepening the lie. Our narrator wants to portray this relationship as something dark, yet also immensely beautiful and encompassing. The result is a song about the agony and pleasure of a broken relationship, disguised so well as a love song in every possible way that it gets mistaken for something romantic. (Even if you are aware of the meaning, there is still that deep urge to experience the song as something romantic. Just like the narrator, the listener is drawn in by beauty and the powerful idea of love, so much so that it can blind them to reality.)
Variations of this can be seen in Talk. In this song, the narrator makes their intentions very clear - they are sweet-talking someone in order to hide their own thoughts and desires (“I try to talk refined, for fear that you find out how I’m imagining you”). Despite knowing this, the sheer power of the lyrics (“I'd be the voice that urged Orpheus / when her body was found. / I'd be the choiceless hope in grief / that drove him underground. / I'd be the dreadful need in the devotee / that made him turn around, / and I'd be the immediate forgiveness in Eurydice”) overwhelms the listener. We know the speaker is putting on a show. We know they have ulterior motives, and likely don’t even believe what they are saying. But their words are so beautiful that we don’t care. The intense, almost mythic music in the background is so lovely and deep, it makes the lyrics seem genuine, because what lie could sound so astounding and true? In this case, the song about smoke and mirrors and empty talk becomes a love song because the narrator is just that skilled at lying.
Even songs like Too Sweet, sung by a narrator who refuses to be with someone unless they allow their standards to slide, become ‘romantic’ and ‘sweet’ to certain listeners - not because the lyrics are impenetrable, but because so many of Hozier’s narrators are unreliable. His songs spin sweet stories, lies so stunning that listeners are willing to deny what they know in order to experience the beauty of that untruth, the complexity of that space between what is real and what we want to believe.
And isn’t that more true to the experience of being a person, and loving other people, than the simple truths we often see in these types of songs?
I'd like to premise this analysis with the admittance that I have never read 'Dante's Inferno'. Appalling, I know, but I've been busy reading fanfics on Tumblr & complaining about Oscar Wilde. That being said, I've been hours upon hours of research prior to writing this, though that does not mean that my explanations will be entirely accurate. Feel free to correct me if any of my quotes/recitations are wrong !!
Now, despite being morbidly under qualified to speak on 'Dante's Inferno', I am grossly OVER qualified to speak on Hozier & his lyricism. That man and I have an unspoken connection (he's unaware of it, yes, but that does not make it any less tangible). I've written innumerable analyses for his songs—most of which reside in the depths of my journal & will never see the light of day.
Okay, so! Quick backstory on Dante's interpretation of Francesca and her lover, Paulo!
Francesca was a spirit encountered by Dante and Virgil in their journey through Hell. Paolo, grief-stricken and seemingly inconsolable, could only cry. Quote from Dante's narration after hearing Francesca's retelling of their love: "While thus one spirit spake // the other wail’d so sorely, that heartstruck // I through compassion fainting". Here we learn that Paolo's sorrow is striking enough to cause Dante to faint (which I've begun to learn isn't uncommon).
Their story itself, however, can be described by solely one word: tragic. I will include quotes for everything I can find, though I am not the best at translating ancient english. That being said, some of these descriptions are taken from others' accounts (which can be found at the bottom of this post under 'sources').
Francesca da Rimini was an Italian noblewoman of Ravenna. She was the daughter of Guido I da Polenta, who was lord of Ravenna (could not personally find proof of this, though many recite it as truth). In a play of politics, Francesca's hand was given to a man of whom she'd never met—Giovanni Malatesta. The date of their marriage is unknown, though the end occurred upon Giovanni's discovery of his wife's clandestine love for his younger brother, Paolo Malatesta. Their marriage was not ended, however, in court with divorce papers. Instead, it'd ended on a blade when Giovanni murdered his wife and his kin.
Francesca, of course, recounts it in a much more romantic light when recounting it to Dante. "Loving brought us to one death" she had said regarding the fate of which was wrought by her infidelity turned reverence. Francesca had believed her husband to wear the face of Paolo, thus falling in love with him at first sight. To her dismay, however, he'd simply been the stand-in for his elder sibling/her arranged husband. The revelation of this truth did not stunt their shared love, though, as they decided to continue it via rendezvous.
Together, Francesca and Paolo read books that she deemed to have depicted their personal tale of love. "Alone we were, and no // suspicion near us. Ofttimes by that reading // our eyes were drawn together, and the hue // fled from our alter’d cheek. But at one point // alone we fell". Here, Francesca describes the yearning she and Paolo felt for one another while enveloped in solitude. Their eyes met, their cheeks flushed, and their hearts fell. Simple as that. And, due to love's apparent simplicity, they kissed. "Kiss’d // by one so deep in love, then he, who ne’er // from me shall separate, at once my lips // all trembling kiss’d". She describes Paolo as 'the who never shall separate from me'. From there, she says that they didn't do much reading, after that, and allowed the book & the writer to bear witness to their love. "The book and writer both // Were love’s purveyors. In its leaves that day // We read no more."
Needless to say, Giovanni was not happy when he learned of their affair. And, in a fit of rage and jealousy, killed them both. From death, the pair of lovers sank into the depths of Hell—in where they reside in the second ring devoted to the sin of lust. There, they are spun through the winds of an endless hurricane that represents the relentless dizziness of their sin. "Into a place I came // Where light was silent all. Bellowing there groan’d // A noise as of a sea in tempest torn // By warring winds. The stormy blast of hell // With restless fury drives the spirits on // Whirl’d round and dash’d amain with sore annoy." << Dante's depiction of lust's ring.
Now we can, finally, get into the song itself!
Do you think I'd give up
That this might've shook the love from me
Or that I was on the brink?
How could you think, darling, I'd scare so easily?
Hozier's recount of this tale is told from Francesca's perspective. Here, she speaks to Paolo and asks if he truly believed her to be spineless enough to back down from their devotion for one another in the face of simple death. She claims to be undeterred by the notion of dying, so long as it's done with him at her side.
In fact, Hozier states in an interview these words: "there is no life in which i make any other choice but to love you". In this, it is rather apparent that Francesca withholds no intent to leave or abandon Paolo even whilst condemned to an eternal punishment in Hell.
Now that it's done
There's not one thing that I would change
My life was a storm, since I was born
How could I fear any hurricane?
Here, Francesca is looking back on all of which occurred and, still, claims to be willing to redo all of it. She would make the exact same choices even if she were to have taken a glimpse into the future of their endless suffering. She would change nothing. She would still have read novels by his side and, there, she would still have met his eye with a hue of red adorning her cheeks. She would, still, die alongside him.
She also deems her life to have been a storm since her birth, relating the turmoil of her existence with the hurricane endured following her untimely demise. This fact considered, how could Paolo possibly expect her to fear the fate laid at their feet?
If someone asked me at the end
I'll tell them put me back in it
Darling, I would do it again, ah, ah
If I could hold you for a minute
Darling, I'd go through it again, ah, ah
I would still be surprised I could find you, darling
In any life
If I could hold you for a minute
Darling, I would do it again, ah, ah
Oh my God, can someone fucking sedate me??? This song will never fail to amaze me with its undeniable eloquence and symbolism. Fuck you, Hozier, for writing something so emotionally devastating. Nobody could ever compete with your brilliance & you've ruined music for me.
These two stanzas are my second and third favorites within the entirety of this song (if you could not already tell). Here, Francesca repeats the confession of her willingness to do it all again so long as Paolo is present for her to cradle and kiss. Or, in the words Hozier spoke within an interview: "being clung to your side for all of eternity is no punishment whatsoever" (I'm literally going insane what the fuck is his problem).
For all that was said
Of where we'd end up at the end of it
When the heart would cease
Ours never knew peace
Kill me kill me kill me kill me I'm writing this at three in the morning with a pounding migraine and now I'm crying because I'm on my period & Hozier is literally ending my life (he must've taken notes from Giovanni).
In this verse, Francesca mentions past conversations regarding their fates and what their souls would be treated with. She then counters this via claiming her and Paolo's lives to have been relentless in their suffering, even prior to being damned to endure it eternally. Killme
What good would it be on the far side of things?
It was too soon
When that part of you was ripped away
A grip taking hold
Like a cancer that grows
Each piece of your body that it takes
As someone who bore witness to the effects of cancer infiltrating the body of someone I loved dearly, Hozier's metaphor in this verse is absolutely sickening in its rawness. He relates the growing, gripping, and grating of cancer to the descent of Paolo—which can be interpreted as his descent toward Hell itself or his descent toward the grief we see him embodied by in Dante's writing. I have also seen people theorize that this verse is in Paolo's perspective & that he is writing of his love for Francesca, thus referring to her descent toward adultery and his shamelessness in having wrung it from her.
But, regardless of how you spin it, the entirety of this verse and this song as a whole is undeniably stunning in its prose. Paolo's mental deprivation being used as the personification of cancer's depiction on the human body/soul is just absolutely breathtaking.
[Chorus again]
I would not change it each time (I would not change it each time)
Heaven is not fit to house a love (Heaven is not fit to house a love)
Like you and I (like you and I)
I have no words.
I've actually fucking run out of words.
Goodbye.
Sources !!!
This absolute fucking tragedy of a video (which I feel the need for sourcing because it was playing in the background throughout all my research & writing for this post) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6hHEluygpM&list=RDQ6hHEluygpM&start_radio=1
A quick and easy explanation on Dante's tale (this woman is so soft-spoken and gentle, I love her) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciRUe_XW8BM
An official interview by Hozier in regards to this song (I quoted this video a million times pls watch it) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAniyw7qs2g
Yet another video I drew information from to better understand Francesca and Paulo's story (I only watched the second & fifth segments—00:54 & 7:32 for timestamps) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrlQ_JB55bo
Finally a source that's not Youtube, I know. This is where I based the vast majority of my info from (Sparknotes I love you please don't be unreliable) : https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/inferno/summary/
The PDF in which I read Canto 5 so as to grasp fully the story of Francesca : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8800/8800-h/8800-h.htm#cantoI.5
The aforementioned interpretation in which Paolo is deemed to be the narrator : https://www.reddit.com/r/Hozier/comments/13g87d9/francesca_breakdown/
@valeisaslut !! thank u for requesting this & thereby sending me spiraling into a pit of despair 🤍 this was so fun yet so painful
When I say oh to be loved the way Hozier loves, I mean it, like I mean it. the way that man croons and sings about love and kindness and boundless devotion beyond the constraints of mortality. There’s such an intimacy to his words in how he describes the human condition, and the sort of love I can only dream of experiencing.
the lyric „Where you were held frozen like an angel to me” lives in my head rent free, it’s literally so genius and i need to talk about it.
knowing the entire album concept, but also with the lines „I swam a like of fire i’d have walked across the floor of any seas” (lake of fire - circle vi, floor of any sea - circle v, the river styx) we know that the narrator quite literally went through the entirety of hell just to be with his lover and now they are in the furthest part. the part the closest to exit, the way to heaven, but it’s the worst one as well. those who get there are the worst people to ever exist, lucifer himself is eternally stuck in the 9th circle.
so the 9th circle consists of a frozen lake and satan is right in the middle of it, frozen from the waist down. In his three mouths he eternally chews judas, brutus and gaius cassius, history’s most famous traitors. and the cycle repeats over and over (woah this already a crazy setting for a breakup song are you okay andrew)
now we get to my favourite part. who is lucifer if not the former angel of light? god’s greatest creation in the entire world, the perfect entity, pure sublimity. you see where i am getting, right?
the girlfriend. is the satan. woah.
the former perfection, what used to be the best creation for the lord. the angel. yet he’s now held frozen in the lake, bound to cause suffering by literally chewing people up. “you called me angel for the first time, my heart leapt for me, you smile now, I can see its pieces still stuck in your teeth” - she chewed him up, from the very first moment she was giving away that she is the devil, in small actions, covering them up with smiles and niceties.
is it easy to mistake lucifer for the angel he was? forget that he is no longer the sublime angel? when you’re in love, probably yes.
all of this to say, hozier literally compared his partner to lucifer chewing him up. mistaking a bad person for the greatest entity ever encountered. falling completely, ignoring the “scarlet flags” just to one day realise that all this time you were in love with the traitorest of traitors.
An analysis of love in From Eden/ Self titled by Hozier
Something so interesting about the love in From Eden is that, to me, the best way you can describe how the narrator sings about love is pathetic. Or in some cases even genuinely toxic.
Songs such as “take me to chruch” and “Cherry Wine” are about toxic love.
“Take me to Church” (while having a lot of religious imagery) has a theme of an unbalanced love. This theme, of course, can refer to a genuine romantic relationship but also the relationship of religious followers to their church.
“Cherry Wine” is about domestic violence. The narrator is aware of the domestic abuse they’re going through yet still revers their lover, exploring how domestic violence victims and survivors cope with abuse.
Other songs in From Eden the narrator is kinda pathetic in their love (I say this jokingly. I just think saying pathetic is funny). Think of songs such as “Angel of Small Death and Codeine Scene”, “Jackie and Wilson”, “Someone New”, “To be Alone”, “From Eden”, “It Will Come Back”. All of these songs are, in some way, showing the yearning of the narrator. The narrator has a love unreciprocated and he’s going to lengths to even feel their love for a second.
There are very few genuine love songs in From Eden. Out of the 15 tracks only 3 can be called genuine love songs (in my opinion) these songs being “Work Song”, “In a week”, and “Like real people do”.
My interpretation of how love works in From Eden is that the narrator is a victim of love. He grasps at something he just can’t reach. It’s as if the narrator is stuck in the desert, using their hands as a water cup yet the water slips out, he only ever gets enough to wet his lips.
This is one of my favorite songs on all of Unreal Unearth and it's because the songwriting here is so cyclical, which matches what the song is about. All things do end, but they'll begin again, same as they always do. What I love about this song is that the tonal center of this song shifts around depending on whether it's in the chorus or verse, and it's not easy to say what key it's in. Is it in C, since there's no key signature? Or is it in A minor? Is it in F? It certainly shifts to F for the chorus.
Hozier uses a lot of secondary dominants in this song, which I am super happy with considering how straightforward some of the other songs are on this album. For the non-music-theory-knowers among us, in Western music, dominance is a key (get it?) idea - dominance is how we get back to our home key, our home note, our tonal center. You can imagine that your home key is like a house, or your front door. The only way to get to that front door is by walking across the stoop or threshold. The stoop is dominance. Every door has a stoop, and that stoop leads directly to the door (though sometimes you can forget something in the car and get to the stoop and immediately turn around to get the thing you forgot, also called the deceptive cadence, but you always come back to the door. And sometimes there's a side door you come in. That's the plagal cadence, also known as the "Amen" cadence, and Hozier uses that too in Unreal Unearth, but that's a different post).
The dominant of something is always the fifth of something (counted up from the key you're trying to go to, please do not tell me the dominant of C is F). For example, the dominant of C is G because G is a fifth away from C, inclusive (C-D-E-F-G). Okay, so in secondary dominance, you can actually approach the chord you want to get to via its front stoop. Let's say the chord progression is C to G. Easy easy. What if I want to make it more complicated? Then I go to the dominant of G (D, or to make it stronger, D7) and use that chord to approach G. That's secondary dominance (C-D7-G)(but if I were realizing this on piano, I'd likely play C-D7/C-G/B for voice leading reasons).
OKAY ALL THAT BEING SAID, Hozier uses secondaries here to keep it interesting. Let's take a look.
Verse:
Am7 C7 FM7
Dm7 E7 (feel free to add the 9 or the b3 on top of the G#) Am7 x2
Am7 C7 FM7
Dm7 E7 (some people say Em7?) FM7 C/E
Ebdim7 (ehhh why not throw an EbM7 in instead, it works) Dm7
AbM7 Gsus4 FM7 (tonal center shifts to F)
Chorus:
E7 E7/G# Am7
Gm7 C7 FM7 x3
E7 --
Transition back to verse:
(implied Am7) C7 FM7
Dm7 E7 Am7
Back to the verse! And then a key change after verse 2!
All those 7s you see, especially the ones that are just the letter followed by the number (C7, E7) are dominant 7s, our stoop chords, which means they're the ones really doing the work of pushing us toward resolution. We can argue that this song starts in A minor and modulates to F major for the chorus, then pivots back to A minor for the verse. And this is because E7 is the chord through which we can get to A minor - but also we can get to F major thanks to the relationship of the V and the vi in A minor (the deceptive cadence). He uses that E7 again as a secondary dominant to approach the A minor once we shift to F major (V7/iii - V6-5/iii - iii - v7/V7 - V7 - I7) so we feel like we're in familiar territory, except that the tonal change has made the chorus feel hopeful as opposed to the shifting sand of the verse. This is really tight writing from Hozier and such a great, economical progression.
And that's it! Happy playing!
(I am aware chord sites say that the E7 is an Em7 or Em, which works fine either way when you play, but I'm hearing a strong pull back to Am7 and that'll be done with the E7.)
